‘They’ll use AI for new drugs’: Ireland’s arms race with organised crime

Before being allowed into Forensic Science Ireland’s (FSI) futuristic facility on the Backweston Laboratory Campus, you pass through two security cordons. Once inside, you can proceed no further than the reception area unless you agree to provide a DNA sample. The scientists keep these on file to exonerate the innocent in the unlikely event of cross-contamination. Criminal forensics have inspired a whole genre of television crime series. But this is the real deal; CSI Ireland, so to speak. The facility is where some of the finest scientific minds in Ireland work. The FSI mission statement says it all: science supporting justice. The agency provides the scientific evidence that helps An Garda Síochana link suspects to crimes and, ultimately, enables the Director of Public Prosecutions to ground prosecutions and secure convictions, some against the most dangerous people in the country.READ MOREFSI takes in about 25,000 samples a year, more than 10,000 of which are for drugs cases. The presence of a particular type of drug must be confirmed in watertight testing that even the most skilled barristers cannot pick holes in.A Forensic Science Ireland scientist analyses samples of illegal drugs discovered in Garda investigations. Photograph: Enda O'Dowd But drugs are only part of the picture. The scientists analyse fingerprints, bodily fluids and chemicals among other substances and exhibits, including murder weapons and victims’ clothing. They also maintain the national DNA database, which runs to more than 100,000 profiles provided matching in 1,200 cases last year. Its national fingerprint database has nearly two million samples. These days FSI staff are preparing for artificial intelligence (AI) to be used in organised crime and trying to position themselves to respond. They expect new drugs – so new they are not yet banned – will be modelled by criminals using the technology. Under former director Chris Enright, FSI moved from a cramped and crumbling facility squeezed into a corner of the Garda headquarters campus in Phoenix Park, Dublin, to its new 13,000sq m base near Celbridge, Co Kildare. Responsibility for developing the service, leveraging this new facility to the maximum, now falls to Ciarán Seoighe, who will next month mark one year in the job.He has a background in quantum physics, but the Dubliner has spent most of his career working as a management consultant for Accenture. He spent about half that time in Europe and North America and the other half focused on sub-Saharan Africa, based out of Johannesburg. A scientist at Forensic Science Ireland analyses DNA samples. Photograph: Enda O'Dowd Then, for about eight years, he worked for Research Ireland, formerly Science Foundation Ireland, before joining FSI. One of things he needs to do is hire scientists and analysts. A batch of 20 jobs advertised this year attracted almost 1,000 applications. Seoighe says FSI last year took in about 25,000 cases, or samples, and completed 23,000, a shortfall of 2,000.The additional staff – growing from about 200 to 230 this year and up to 250 by the end of next year – will help to bridge that gap. This expansion will also allow FSI to do deeper research and analysis, so that those involved in the criminal justice system in Ireland, and around the world, can quickly spot new trends and stop organised criminals who always try to be one step ahead.According to its as-yet-unpublished annual report for 2025, FSI reported on 11,453 drugs and toxicology cases, 6,838 DNA cases, including sexual assaults, and 4,013 fingerprint cases.Seoighe noted street cocaine tested by FSI has been increasing in purity, rising from 35 per cent pure in 2016 to 53 per cent in 2024. The purity of heroin fell in 2024 to 26 per cent, having stood at 43 per cent two years earlier.With more staff, he says, FSI can drill into those trends and determine what is driving them. It could also determine how cannabis herb being sold on Irish streets has changed since suppliers from the US, Canada and Thailand have come to dominate the market in recent years.Samples are analysed in the laboratories in Forensic Science Ireland. Photograph: Enda O'Dowd Of trying to hire analysts and scientists to work at the FSI in a full-employment economy, he says: “We’re competing with the pharmaceuticals and the Googles and Microsofts, who can offer people vastly more salary. “But what drives people to come here is not salary, it’s purpose. People might spend time in pharmaceuticals, for example, in the early part of their career. But then if they come into forensics they generally stay for decades because there’s a purpose here.”FSI staff isolate and report on the evidence that convicts thousands of criminals including killers, rapists, drug dealers and gunmen. Seoighe describes the workload as “stable” in terms of the number of cases, but “getting increasingly complex”. While most of the drugs cases are straightforward, others take up huge resources.Gangs in Ireland and abroad, he explains, are working together – using their own scientists – to disguise cocaine as coal and even paper to ensure it goes undetected while being smuggled into the State. When those hauls are seized, FSI must reverse the process and turn the load – at least part of it – into cocaine to ensure the suspects can be charged.Some gangs have also genetically engineered cannabis plants to produce oils that do not breach the law in Ireland. These oils can be used to make all manner of cannabis products – from edible jellies to vapes – that offer the user the high they expect while in theory being legal. “Throughout 2025, there have been several FSI drug case reports involving these cannabis products adulterated with synthetic cannabinoids ... These synthetic cannabinoids also circumvent Irish drugs legislation,” FSI’s 2025 annual report, due for publication on Wednesday, says.Seoighe says his staff must keep identifying these products, so Irish drugs legislation can be tweaked to close the loopholes and ensure the newly developed products are banned. Last year, FSI discovered 10 drug types never detected in Ireland before, mostly synthetic cannabinoids that can be smoked via vape or sprayed on to leaf for smoking. Among them was a drug that had never been previously detected anywhere in Europe: Hexahydrocannabinol-C8 (HHC-C8), a semi-synthetic cannabinoid found in a brown resinous substance. Illegal drugs are analysed in the laboratories. Photograph: Enda O'Dowd Seoighe describes the work as an “arms race” between FSI and domestic and international organised crime, which he believes AI is about to accelerate.“The other side is just as a sophisticated, full R&D capabilities in some cases,” he says of the better organised and resourced crime gangs.“We had the first AI and forensics day last Friday, where we had 10 of Ireland’s leading AI academics come in here and talk to the forensic scientists to see if we could get two worlds to meet; where this is going to go, what’s going to come at us.“It’s an unknown. It’s likely to create challenges and there’s also likely to be opportunities. AI is getting increasing sophisticated.” He says the technology can come up with different ways to present and hide drugs and even model new types of drugs.“So you can imagine they’d start doing that. But equally, we can model on the other side and say, ‘Well, this is what it would look like when it goes into the machinery’. It’s the next evolution of this constant arms race and where it’s going to go.”